A cruel game
by writersblock23
Summary: A SHIELD agent has gone missing. Viper Carter has always been different, she has skills which have never been seen before in humans, order by Nick Fury she is to inspect the tesseract but what happens when she is pulled through to the other side? How will she survive being face to face with an Asgardian Loki, as she is forced to play this cruel game.
1. Chapter 1

As they pulled up to the gate of the compound Viper placed her fingers to her temple and winced. "How far in is it?" She said through clenched teeth.

Clint looked over at her from the driver's seat. "Close to five hundred metres, why?"

"Then it's got some real juice behind it if it can give me a headache from here, why does Fury want me near this thing anyway?"

Clint chuckled. "Who on this planet knows more about energy then you?"

The car took off as they were waved through the gate. "How about the legion of physicist he's already got here, I don't have a degree in this stuff."

"And yet you know how to do more with it than any of those professionals. If it wasn't for you we may not have found out about the New Mexico incident until weeks later."

Viper huddled into her jacket. "Any moron can notice a hammer falling out of the sky." Clint just continued to drive, trying not to laugh.

The greeting they received wasn't warm; the standard agent Carter and Barton was given as they were ushered into the room. It was filled with men all standing around staring at the blue cube which occupied, the centre. The second Viper stepped into the room she could feel the energy pulsing through the blue cube. She tried not to hiss as they were confronted by a man in his mid-fifties. He took one look at Viper before speaking directly to Clint, extending a hand. "I take it you're here to help assess the tesseract."

"It's good to meet you doctor Selvig; this is my partner agent Viper Carter, she'll be assessing the cube."

The good doctor looked at Viper. "There must be a mistake, this isn't the kiddie pool. We don't have time for a child to be assessing the most powerful source of energy the world has ever seen."

Viper took one step forward. "Doctor Selvig, I am nineteen years of age. By the time I was thirteen I was a fugitive wanted by SHIELD and by fourteen I was working for them, don't patronise me. Fury sent me because I have a very special skill set. That energy source of yours right now is emitting low level gamma radiation correct." He nodded. "Did you also know it is collecting and storing energy from the machinery surrounding and also some of the natural sources within the earth? Now I may not have spent several years at college studying this but trust me when I tell you that it's not something you want occurring. If you would be so kind to move now." She smiled as she walked passed him toward the tesseract.

"That is a woman; I wouldn't want to piss off." The doctor muttered behind her back.

Clint chuckled. "That's Viper being diplomatic, you haven't even seen mildly annoyed."

Viper could feel her teeth grinding together as she walked closer to the damn thing. She'd told Fury when they'd found it in the ocean with Steve Rogers that they were better off leaving there. Viper stopped a few feet away from it, not wanting to get any closer already she could feel the energy bouncing off it. Viper tried to find the energy field which should have been there separate but she came up blank. All she could feel anywhere was the tesseract; it was so intense she started to think it was burning her skin. "Clint."

"What are you getting New Mexico vibes?"

"Sort of." She said intrigued. As Viper took another step forward her world seemed to be on fire as her feet were stuck in place as though being griped by irons. "Clint!" She called over the humming in her ears as she placed her hands over them everyone around seemed to not notice a thing except the machines going berserk.

Clint came running over. "Come on Viper we've got to move!" He yelled over the tesseract, grabbing her arm and pulling.

"Clint I can't move, my feet are stuck." She tried to explain just as her feet began to slip across the ground. Viper spun as fast she could to grab hold of Clint's arms as she felt her feet beginning to lift off the ground under no control of her own. Clint held her arms as she tried to pull herself away from the tesseract. "Clint can you move your feet."

"Yeah!"

"Good try to pull away from the tesseract and take me with you." He nodded as he tried to back up further away from the power source, but keeping his feet planted enough that they would get swept away in the struggle. Viper could feel her foot starting to move away from the pulsing cube when something started to snake around her ankle, it was physical and not at the same time feeling sort of wet and slimy. Viper looked desperately behind her as she tried to move further into Clint; whatever was going on it was only her that was being pulled in no one in the room was being affected and neither was the equipment. The laws of physics only seemed to be defying themselves where she was concerned. As Viper saw that the blue glow of the tesseract was spreading out from the actual cube and onto her she knew it was too late.

Clint was trying his hardest but with the energy pulling her in Viper had to act, Fury wanted to know what was going on with the cube and maybe going inside of it was the best possible way to find out. She waited until Clint wasn't concentrating on her she flung her elbows out hitting the right nerves in his arms that it would be reflex to let go. As Clint released her Viper was thrown back into the tesseract at incredible speed like a slingshot. As she was engrossed in the blue all around Viper felt as though she was being covered in slime. As she began to fall she talked to herself. "It's just like jumping." She repeated over and over again, fumbling for her knives because where ever she was going it was always best to prepare for the worst. There was some truth to her words it was just like jumping except for the part where she didn't know where she'd end up. As Viper felt the familiar sensation of falling out of energy she rolled into a crouch, thankful that it was only gravel she hit and not something worse. As she popped up from her crouch she looked around knife in each hand to the infestation of weird creatures all armed to the teeth with weaponry she'd never seen before. "Aliens fan-fucking-tastic." She murmured to herself.

Author's Note: I really would love to hear what anyone thinks of this, I'd been thinking about this since I saw the avengers but when I was watching the second Thor yesterday it just hit me.


	2. Captured

Clint ascended the stairs which held the tesseract. "Bring her back!" He yelled at Selvig. "What was that?" Clint couldn't find it in himself to calm down.

"I don't know some sort of anomaly, in all that time you never felt as though you were being sucked into the field?" He asked with wonder.

"No, but we have to bring her back now! Can't you replicate the conditions and either send someone else through or bring her back."

Selvig looked over the data. "No of course not, these sorts of reading are unimaginable and unrepeatable. We have just witnessed the greatest evolution of physics in human history, to analysis every small sequence and then replicate them each would decades alone but to try to recreate an instance of that magnitude would be a life time of work. That girl may very well be the reason that our idea of science and its application explode. Even if we could somehow send someone through to retrieve her there is no guarantee that where she's gone is hospitable for humans or that the individual we send will actually end up in the same location."

"Then I would suggest you start, because that girl is almost a daughter to Nick Fury and had irreplaceable talents not to mention only being nineteen. Is the back of science going to be built upon a dead girl's corpse?" Clint stormed out as he did putting in his ear piece. "Hill we have a problem."

"What sort of problem?"

"Agent Viper Carter is missing in action and presumed dead."

"Where could you have lost her?"

"Inside the tesseract. Hill, what do we do? I am not going to tell Fury that we have misplaced her."

"No, that wouldn't be wise. Fury is not scheduled to inspect it for a few weeks until then we can hold off contact between the two while you try to get her back."

"Copy that Hill."

Viper didn't stop to think she found a good footing and began to launch into attack; SHIELD had been useful for honing skills in street fighting and basic martial arts. Viper held her blade in front of her face and began to slash out left right and centre, the squeals from the things which she cut were deafening but she had to keep going. Viper tumbled along the ground preferring to keep low as she took out their ankles and legs anything which clear them away. One of them caught Viper by the leg and hoisted her into air, Viper cut its arm and as she fell back down to the ground, she noticed a figure standing across from her. He looked human enough with his longish black hair and medieval get up.

Viper found her feet, still clutching her knife in her hand. "You've come a long way now haven't you?" The man said as he stepped closer, Viper held her ground she could tell by the way he held himself that he wasn't all that he seemed. There was a grace to the predatory way in which he approached. "I am Loki…"

"The god of mischief." Viper finished without thinking about it, she could feel something was strange with him. "If you're from Asgard where exactly are we, because this is definitely not it." She said as she took in landscape which surrounded them it was rocky and crumbling.

Loki took another step toward her. "Tell me how this couldn't possibly be Asgard. What would an insignificant little ant like you know about a realm which has become fiction to your people?"

Viper watched his feet before looking him right in the eye. "I know what anyone with a basic knowledge of Norse mythology knows, that Asgard is the realm of the gods connected to all the other realms by the bifrost, the rainbow bridge. It is a city of legend, not a wasteland."

Loki smiled. "While it has been lovely chatting to you, I have more important things to do mortal." He raised the spear which he'd concealed behind his cloak and as he did Viper turned launching her knife behind her as she watched it grazed the cheek of the real Loki while the other one the one she'd been talking to, faded to nothing. "How?" He mouthed wiping the blood from his cheek as he held her knife.

Viper smirked. "I may be mortal by my eyes are open wider than most, your little tricks won't work on me. That was just energy manipulated to look like a person, an impressive trick."

The real Loki brought himself face to face with Viper. He stared at her golden brown eyes, how they went with her long brown hair that ran in kinks down to the middle on her back. She didn't seem at all extraordinary. "Bring her." He called as two Chitauri seized one arm each, following behind as they escorted Viper away. "Do you have a name mortal?"

"It's Viper." Viper began to smile to herself. Like shooting fish in a barrel, she thought as she went with them. They brought her to what would be described as a modest fortress far below what she would expect from a god. Viper settled into her little cell she was given it was a room with four walls, a bed and a single chair. For lack of anything better to do Viper paced, she tried to figure out how exactly she was going to get out of here she didn't have much to go back to but she wasn't be saddled with this for the rest of her life.

Hours passed, Viper sat on the ground taking inventory of her possessions everything she had on her had made the jump through the tesseract as useless as some of it was she had her phone which had no reception, her grandmother's jacket which she'd been wearing, the single photo of her grandmother she always kept on her it was one of the few things to remind Viper of her, as she handled the photo with care since it was from the second world war, she stared at it as she so often had since her grandmother died, people said they looked alike but Viper knew the differences so well their hair was the same colour and they had a similar facial structure but it was all in the eyes that you could tell the two of them were completely different people. There were also the keys to Viper's apartment, twenty bucks, a stick of gum and the two remaining knives she had on her. As the door began to open Viper scrambled to hide the photo it was the most important thing she had. She looked up from the ground in her t-shirt and jeans to watch Loki enter with a plate of food.

"You mortal's need to be fed regularly as I understand it." He sneered sitting in the chair placing the food on the ground at his feet. "Now you and I are going to talk."


	3. Two of a kind

"About what exactly?" Viper fired back popping a grape in her mouth.

"How you could see through a trick that has fooled, gods and creatures of magic alike many times before but you a mere human knew straight away."

"Then I'm sorry but I can't be of much service, I've just always been able to feel energy move since I was a kid and if I concentrate I can see it. If that's all this is going to be a very short conversation."

Loki clenched the bridge of his nose. "Don't test my patience your alive because I find you amusing and somewhat intriguing."

Viper began to chuckle. "You know for a god of mischief you are rather serious. I'm not lying to you; I don't know why I can do what I do, I just can."

"How did you get here then and what do you want?" He was trying hard to keep composed Viper could see it, not wanting to push it too far he didn't seem to be one to control anger.

"I came here because the tesseract pulled me here and the only thing I want is to go back, if you could oblige that would be more than helpful."

"Why so you can go and tell all your mortals and prepare them." He smiled. "Not a chance, this has taken too much effort to let a little girl squander it."

"Prepare them for what?" She asked sitting up so that she was almost kneeling, like a little kid who is being told a story.

"That's how you humans should be." He said nodding towards her. "I always told my father that you were beneath us."

"Odin knows about this, what did you do remove Thor from the picture?" She laughed.

Suddenly Loki came to life from where he was sitting. "What do you know of Thor?"

"Not much really, just what I saw in New Mexico."

"The tesseract and you know what happened with my brother coming to earth, tell me who are?" He smirked. "Not just any humans would know what went on there, who do you work for Viper?"

"SHIELD, I've been a member for the past five years because of my unique gift." She turned away. "That's why I was in New Mexico and near the tesseract they wanted me there because of the weird energy field changes. I knew when your brother landed because I felt it, even though I was on the other side of the country at the time."

Loki sprung from his chair and grabbed her face. "What do you have to do to see the energy move? Show me." He hissed.

Viper closed her eyes, she focused on the energy points she could feel and then opened them again, all around her were lines of colour, pink, blue, green, yellow they all were beautiful as she watched them move. Viper could start to feel the fields pulsing like crazy, she let the connection go that allowed her to see it returning to the normal way and Loki just there stood with a big smile on his face. "No wonder the tesseract pulled you through, to think there was Asgardian blood as pure as yours on Midgard but more than that, the blood of a gatekeeper. You must only be one or two generation away from pure blood or else you would not have so much power." He let her face go and Viper looked into the screen of her phone to see that her eyes were still yellow it only lasted temporarily.

Viper breathed out. "That explains a lot." She said as she fidgeted, thinking on the fact that she wasn't even fully human.

"Explains what?" He asked turning back to her.

"Why I never fitted in with anyone because I'm not one of them." She contemplated as she sat down on the bed. "I've always just been this freak show, something they all loved to watch do a little magic. How could I have ever been stupid enough to believe that I was one of them? They used me!" She spat.

As Viper looked down at her hands in her lap she felt Loki sit next to her. "I can help you, I know your pain. I can show you how to take your revenge." Loki's hand covered her shoulder. "You just have to trust me."

"How could you know what this is like, you are a prince of your people. Born and raised among the upper-class of your kind."

"I was far from that, my father lied to me for my whole life. He led me to believe that one day I could be a king and that I was his own son but really I was something else entirely from him." He spoke with fury.

Viper shook her head. "What an ass." She exclaimed.

"Be careful how you speak you still are talking about the all father."

Viper shook her head. "No I'm talking about a father who was emotionally scaring to his child, trust me I've been through it, I hated my father so much."

Loki smiled. "It can't be worse than me."

"Oh really, I killed my dad for what he did to me and it ended up with me spending nearly two years running from SHIELD before finally the closest thing I've had to a father figure my whole life put a loaded gun to my forehead and gave me the choice to work for him or die, I believe I win."

"My father chose my arrogant brother over me to rule the realms, even though I was the better suited for the throne, I am a king."

Viper smiled. "Yeah because in the last sentence you were nothing if not arrogant, but that is nothing. My father hated me with a passion for the years which he knew me because he blamed me for my mother's death. I never met the woman because he was wanted by the authorities and couldn't take her to the hospital, so as she held me having to give birth to me in some hidey hole somewhere she bleed to death. I confronted him about it when I was seven years old asking why he couldn't love me. Do you know what his response was?"

"Lies."

Viper huffed. "No something much worse, the truth. He told me that I was a stupid mistake unworthy of the air which I consumed each and every day; that I should be grateful that the day I was born he didn't dash my brains out on the floor and leave me in the snow to die. When I accused him of never loving me he said that of course he loved me because he'd never beaten me, he even said 'you know why I've never hit you, because if I had of started I never would have stopped'. I found out that was true a few days later when he did, he punched and he kicked and I could taste so much blood as he went and all the time he yelled at me that 'this is what hate looks like'." Viper lifted up the side of her shirt showing the scar which extended up her ribs on the left side of her torso. "This is what I will always have to remember that bastard by, I'm not sure when during it that he did this but that seemed to be what ended it because I fell to the ground and couldn't get up and finally he did what he thought he should have the day I was born he left me out in the snow to die." She moved her shirt back down. "I couldn't let him live after something like that."

Loki looked at her with his green eyes. "It seems that you and I are two of a kind."

Author's Note: I really would love some feedback on this story, if you would be so kind.


End file.
